James Gunn’s new Superman film has just arrived in cinemas and it begins with a striking scene in which a technologically advanced military targets innocent civilians across a heavily guarded border fence. 

If this scenario brings to mind Israel’s attacks on Gaza, you are not alone.

Social media has been quick to frame the film as a pointed criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza. 

A five-star review on Letterboxd described it as “very anti-Israel”, a sentiment that has drawn nearly nine million views. 

Another post, seen by 11 million users on X, claims the film’s critique is “very explicit and in your face.”

On X, one user wrote, “Y’all were not kidding about how anti-Israel and pro-Palestine that Superman movie was, and they were not slick with it AT ALL.”

Another commented, “Superman was so openly anti-Israel, and god, it was so good.” A third user added, “Not going to lie, I really like the anti-Israel sentiment from Superman, and now I know James Gunn is always standing on business.”

Controversy over the film’s message has been building since Gunn told The Times that the story is “about politics” and “morality,” and that Superman’s journey is, in essence, “an immigrant” story. This led to heavy criticism, especially from people who support President Donald Trump’s strict anti-immigration policies.

Neither Gunn nor the cast have explicitly stated that the story is about Israel or Palestine, yet early audiences have homed in on one of the film’s central plotlines as an allegory for the current war.

But does the film really focus on Israel and Palestine? Whether the comparison is justified is open to interpretation. The following includes minor spoilers.

The film introduces us to a conflict between two fictional nations, Boravia and Jarhanpur that has drawn immediate comparisons to the situation in Gaza. 

The narrative opens three weeks after Superman (David Corenswet) has intervened to prevent Boravia, a US ally, from invading its poorer neighbour, Jarhanpur. Boravia possesses a powerful, US-backed military, while Jarhanpur is depicted as defenceless and impoverished.

Early on, Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan), a journalist, interviews Superman about his intervention in Boravia .

“The secretary of defence says that he’s going to look into your actions,” Lois says. Superman responds, “My actions? I stopped a war.”

Boravian forces appear with tanks and heavy weaponry while civilians from Jarhanpur are left fleeing with nothing to protect them. The visual language is familiar with arid terrain, modest clothing, and civilians met with rifles as they approach a border fence.

While this power imbalance has existed in other real-life wars, there is a particular detail that leads many to see a closer connection to Israel and Palestine. 

The Boravians are depicted as ethnically white, while the people of Jarhanpur are not.

Boravia’s campaign is also shown as a settler-colonial effort to displace Jarhanpur’s indigenous population and expand its own territory. 

At one point, experimental weapons are deployed against civilians.

In another scene, Jarhanpurians walk towards the border holding sticks and stones while soldiers from Boravia aim rifles at them from the other side of a metal fence. A boy waves a Superman flag in the hope that he will be saved as the soldiers move closer.

For some, these comparisons are too pointed to ignore.

The discussions between characters also mirror familiar arguments in the Israel-Palestine debate.

Lois Lane defends genocidal regime Boravia’s position by saying that a stronger Jarhanpurian government could be a future threat, an argument often used against Hamas. 

The film depicts Superman as the sole survivor of a genocide that wiped out both his family and his entire civilisation. This experience allows him to recognise the true nature of the new regime committing similar atrocities.

Superman and anyone who dares to challenge the billionaire or the regime accused of mass violence are locked away in cramped, degrading detention centres that strongly resemble those run by ICE in the real world. 

The people held inside are stripped of their humanity in both language and treatment, making it easier for those in power to keep them imprisoned indefinitely, without any clear end.

This reality also demonstrates the way Palestinians are treated brutally by Israel and detained without their basic human rights.

From fighting the Klan to witnessing occupation

It is no surprise that James Gunn’s new film draws clear lines between superhero storytelling and contemporary injustice.

Superman’s history as a character has always been bound up with confronting oppression, from fighting the KKK to taking on Nazis.

But in this iteration, Superman’s enemies use modern tools of propaganda.

One of the film’s boldest moves is its depiction of how the billionaire villain and the regime wield online manipulation to undermine Superman’s reputation.

They deploy troll farms, literally run by monkeys in the story, to attack Superman across social media. The campaign uses Islamophobic slurs, accusing Superman of keeping a "harem" of women in a supposed plot to dominate the world.

These wild accusations reflect Israel’s propaganda after October 7, where those in power often accuse their enemies of exactly the wrongdoings they themselves commit.

As the film shows, villains – resembling figures such as Musk and Trump – seek personal gain and behave with hypocrisy, all while painting Superman as the threat.

The film keeps the Boravia-Jarhanpur conflict in focus, with Boravian leader Vasil Glarkos, played by Zlatko Buric, an old white bloodthirsty politician resembling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 

He openly states his intention to steal the land, take its oil and gas, hand parts of it to wealthy elites, and sell off the rest to whoever will pay the most.

Vasil also works alongside the main antagonist, Lex Luthor, played by Nicholas Hoult. Lex is portrayed as playing a central role in Boravia’s aggression and seeks to seize part of Jarhanpur for himself.

The other political undertones include such as Lex Luthor being modelled after Donald Trump.

“Of course, Donald Trump was our model,” Superman writer John Byrne told the Daily Beast in 2016. DC Comics later published an “unauthorised Lex Luthor biography” that closely resembled the cover of Trump’s book, The Art of the Deal.

Writing in real time
The film’s timeline also lines up with real-world events. Gunn began writing shortly after October 7, 2023, and finished the script by December. Filming began at the end of February 2024.

During this time, Gunn commented on the war indirectly. Egyptian comedian Bassem Youssef announced that he lost a role in the film after making comments about Gaza, although Gunn later clarified that Youssef had never been formally offered a part, though they had spoken about the possibility.

Gunn wrote on Threads that there was no dispute between them and that they had cleared up any misunderstanding through conversation.

While the director has kept quiet about any real-life parallels, both Boravia and Jarhanpur have appeared in the comics for years, making it difficult to ignore the similarities to Israel and Palestine.